PEC Strives to Close Electoral Gender Gap

News Desk

Peshawar: Provincial Election Commissioner (PEC) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is making endeavors for reducing the gender gap on electoral rolls in the province, particularly in merged districts.

This was stated by the Joint Provincial Election Commissioner (JPEC), Muhammad Javed Khan, while addressing a training workshop on women’s NIC and voter registration on Wednesday.

The workshop was organized by the Election Commission in collaboration with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The workshop was attended by Gender Affairs Assistant Director Syed Aun Naqvi, Election Commission Assistant Director Zahid-ur-Rehman, District Election Commissioner Khyber Malik Sohail, DEC Bajaur Ajmal Hafeez, DEC Mohmand Falak Naz, DEC Kurram Muhammad Rauf, DEC Kohat Asif Khattak, NADRA and IFES officials, and JPEC.

Muhammad Javed Khan said that the gender gap between women and male voters was more than 10 percent in the 2017 voter lists, adding that the women without NIC were a major reason. He said that the Election Commission, in collaboration with NADRA and partner organizations has started a mobile registration campaign in 2017 for women’s NIC registration at their doorsteps. A joint meeting of the representative organization and NADRA under the supervision of the DEC has decided the strategy for mobile registration drive in specific blocks, and so far three phases have been completed.

Javed Khan said that the fourth phase would be formally launched in the districts of Khyber, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, and Kurram on Thursday. He urged the Election Commission and NADRA officials to work with local elders and civil society to make the campaign a success by overcoming the difficulties in registering NIC and votes of women. Earlier, Senior Public Relations Officer Sohail Ahmed and Assistant Director Gender Affairs gave a detailed briefing to the participants on the registration campaign.

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